Med School Update

Sean just returned from an interview at Northwestern. He really liked it! As of now, he says it's his favorite school he's been to. My dad thinks that Sean just likes most whichever school he's been to most recently. Living in Chicago would be neat...

And so would St. Louis! He was invited today to interview at Washington University. Yay, that's a school we're really excited about. So he'll interview there a week after interviewing at University of Colorado (funny story, that school cashed our check and then applied the credit to another applicant. It took a bit to get that fixed. I guess that's not so much funny as STRESSFUL!) next month. Way to go Seanboy!

Bunches of Bradleys

Whew, it's been too long! I've had plenty to blog about but no time to do the bloggin! We've had two fun Bradley weekends. Let me tell you about them.

Provo was over run by the Bradley clan over homecoming weekend. We had Sean's whole family, the Bradley grandparents, plus an aunt and an uncle with their fams. Wow! We had lots of Bradley fun. Highlights:

• Watching the boys play marco polo and monkey in the middle. While I sat in the hot tub.




• Watching Sean's dad beat up his sister to get the candy thrown out during the homecoming parade, while applauding unknown deans and other school officials (Bonus #1: This was my first time attending the Homecoming Parade. Of 6 years at BYU. I'm a cougar fan, really!) (Bonus #2: Cecil Samuelson said hi to me! We were walking along a really empty stretch of the parade route and there he was, right next to me! I waved and he said, "hi." Totally unenthusiastic but I loved it!) (Bummer #1: It. was. FREEZING.)

Well now, look, there's a beast man walking down the road

• Watching Eagle Eye with the fam in a real theater. No dollar theater business. (Bonus #3: fun movie. Unrealistic but very entertaining.)(Bummer#2: I was so cold I wore my coat in the theater. And my gloves)





• Watching the Cougs win their football game. We actually got to watch the game in person. It was super wonderful after not even being able to watch it on tv. Stupid Mountain network. (Bummer #4: the cougars lost their next game, so much for the quest for perfection...)
  

The George Q. CANNON! It's just too clever





• Watching Sean's family sit in Sacrament meeting while I sit up front to conduct the music (Bummer #5: they had to leave after the first hour, hencing missing my exciting relief society lesson. There was quite the "discussion")
  

They are thoroughly enjoying our place

I do a lot of watching, huh?

After a school filled busy week, Sean, Kyle and I drove off to Colorado for cousin Jeremy's wedding! It was a nice little affair with both the ceremony and luncheon in such pretty locations. How about I tell this story in pictures.

The happy couple. Classic.

Austin has riding skills.

Kyle has golfing skills.

Sean has gymnast skills.

We have good looking couple skills. I especially have hair in your eye skills.

Look how pretty.

This was my new friend. I took her to the bathroom and, bam, hip attachment.

The luncheon place had pretty straw flower centerpieces.

Jeremy thought that one person cuts and the other scoops. It was cute.

Aw, love that.

I like Colorado.

I LOVE my Sean!

She likes Colorado too.

Ah, calming.

We stopped by an interesting diversion. The Fire Department was running these
pressurized guns that shot pumpkins at signs and vans and buckets. They called it... a pumpkin toss.

Sean made new friends too :)

10 Flights, 6 States, 3 Schools, and Me: One Crazy Week Interviewing at Med Schools

So I'm finally back for a few weeks from my interviews. It feels nice not to be living out of a suitcase right now. It feels even nicer being back with my adorable sweetie again. But man, what a busy week!

I started off in Nashville, TN - home of country music, the Tennessee Titans, and Vanderbilt University. Man, what a beautiful campus! It was a great trip to see a school with some really hi-tech learning aids, super-friendly students, and some cool architecture. I really liked Vanderbilt, and my trip was marred only by my nearly missing my flight home because of bad directions to the bus stop... I mean, I turned left when I should have went right, and I missed my shuttle once, and almost missed it a second time. The hospital complex was pretty sweet and I think Nashville would be a nice place to live.

So I was back for 2 days before I had to head out to Houston for an interview at Baylor. I had a 3.5 hour layover in DIA so I explored every nook and cranny of that airport - I had no idea there were so many gates there! Baylor was fantastic, they have an enormous medical center there, it's like another downtown. It was pretty neat there - everyone had a hurricane story too. Here's mine: I read about it in the news. Cool, huh? So when I went to Houston, there were neighborhoods with piles of trees blown over and stacked up to be burned, lots of windows were broken and covered with plywood. I hear it's awful in Galveston. But things were back to business as usual at the med school and I was really impressed with their programs.

I got back Monday from the University of Chicago - that school just has a sweet campus! Who wouldn't like Chicago? I was able to stay with Katie's family and lightsaber-it-up with my niece and nephew. It was a nice trip, and I felt really guilty leaving my lovely wife at home. I'm ditching her again in 2 weeks to go back, too! Aren't I awful? It was nice to go interview and see all these cool schools - I'll keep you posted on how things turn out.

The ultimate of meetings

Another wonderful General Conference weekend has swept me by and I've come away inspired and knowing there's a heck of a lot I need to work on! I also took a couple more trips to the airport- I had my hubby with me for all of 17 hours this weekend, boo. At least I had the church leaders to keep me company :) Here's some of my favorite bits:

• Elder Oaks' talk on Sacrament Meeting- I always come away learning so much from his talks and appreciated the point by point guidelines of preparing for and worshipping during Sacrament Meeting. I especially liked his joke about sleepers not disturbing anyone else and then quitely snickering to himself. Ha ha, its so funny to see him laugh at his own joke!


• Wow, 5 new temples! How wonderful is that!!


• Elder Holland's talk on Angels- What a beautiful testimony of how we can all express God's love and bring heaven ever closer. I also loved how Sean (in the only session that I got to watch with him) would glance over at me with eyes that said "you're my sweet, precious angel"- I love that boy.


• Elder Bednar's talk on Prayer- How neat was it to think about how we felt when we watched Christ pray for all of us; praying for those we love creates just the same feeling. I loved when he said (something like) the prayers of prophets are childlike in simplicity and powerful in sincerity.


• Elder Eyring's talk on Unity- There's so much contention EVERYWHERE but we really need to remember that we all have the same goal. I've never thought about how sharing our testimonies together unifies us in Christ and he's completely right. I also appreciated the reminder that we need to speak generously about people because speaking critically sows seeds of disunity.


• William D. Oswald's talk on Gospel Teaching- um, I'm teaching, I can use all the help I can get! There sure are a lot of good examples of teachers in the scriptures


• Eduardo Gavarret's talk on Bringing people back- When we sacrifice to try to bring others back to the church, it makes such a difference. We really have a lot we can do.

And remember, enjoy the journey!

The Chosen and The Promise

I'm not sure about the rest of you but there were so many books I was assigned to read in high school that I just didn't... like. Some, I just completely disagreed with the message of the book, something like: women deserve more than the responsibilities "limiting" them as a parent. Or some books just sort of made me feel yucky. Others were interesting enough to think about but I'd never read it again.

One of the few exceptions to the norm holds the honor as my very very favorite book. The Chosen, by Chaim Potok. It's about two jewish boys as they grow up and grow in friendship. They both have brilliant minds and the most interesting fathers. The story is absolutely beautiful. The dynamics of their friendship enraptured me in their story, buttressed by an intricate look at the father/son relationship. What's absolutely amazing is understanding their dedication to their faith, the way they approach study of the talmud, their commitment to their standards. I learned so much about Judaism. And it made me think so much.

I recently discovered that there was a sequal to The Chosen: The Promise. I think it's just as wonderful. It has similar themes but deals more with conflict within religion and how much one can personalize religion. Man, I feel like there is so much to say about these books that I can describe properly. It just really reached deep inside me, causing me to ponder crucial ideas that I often don't consider. There's so many ideas I could talk about here. What really is a soul, how is it developed and nurtured? How do you create a friendship that is full of trust and comparing? How did the Holocaust affect American Jewery, how was Jewish scholarship changed? How do we reconcile differences in beliefs, and at what point do we allow it to break relationships apart? How do I approach my study of the scriptures, could I change to reach the level of these characters (man, the way they study talmud, wow, just wow)? Is there a wrong way to raise a child? At what point can someone's commitment to their beliefs alienate others from that very belief. Can we truly love and truly hate someone simultaneously.

That's what I love about these books, I think about all these ideas all throughout the text. It's truly changed me. There are so many truly admirable characters that have to make truly anguishing decisions. I feel so much respect for them.

I recommend this book to EVERYONE. You'll come out thinking, pondering, wanting to be more committed, more thoughtful. I love it, I really do.